


I Can't Always Be There

by warblerfied



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boxing, Bad Boy Blaine Anderson, Blangst, Cheerio Kurt Hummel, Emotional Hurt, Fluff and Angst, Gay Bashing, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mental Health Issues, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29710392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warblerfied/pseuds/warblerfied
Summary: After Cheerio's practice, Kurt sees Blaine taking his past demons out on a punching bag and Blaine teaches Kurt to box.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	I Can't Always Be There

**Author's Note:**

> TW for Gay Bashing (Blaine's Sadie Hawkins Dance)  
> -  
> This one is kind of short sorry guys :)

Cheerios practice had ended early. Apparently, Sue was in a good mood… which sort of made Kurt, Santana, Quinn, and Brittany worry about Mister Shuester’s health, but at least they wouldn’t have to tumble for the next hour. Kurt walked into the boy’s locker room, giving a brief parting joke to Santana, who snorted and rolled her eyes good naturedly before walking into the girl’s locker room.

The boy’s locker room was mostly empty, save for one person with his back turned to Kurt, punching the ever living daylights out of a punching bag. He didn’t have to turn around for Kurt to know who he was. The man wasn’t all that tall in stature, and curls broke form their gel prison, making Kurt sigh dreamily. The largest hint, he supposed, would have been the beaten leather jacket slung over the back of a chair near him (which Kurt had begged him several times to switch out), but Kurt didn’t need to see that to know that Blaine was there.

He grunted slightly as his fists met the punching bag and the muscles in his arm flexed with each blow. And  _ yes  _ Kurt was shamelessly staring, but could you blame him? His boyfriend was engrossed in an act of brute strength, shining in a thin layer of sweat, and the curls he tried to cramp down under mountains of gel (which Kurt just so happened to love running his fingers through) were freed from their confines. Simply put, Blaine looked hot and Kurt had a right to admiration. He leaned against the doorframe, still in the tight red polyester of the Cheerios uniform.

Blaine took a deep breath, steadying the bag with one hand and breathing heavily. He brought a gloved hand above his head, leaning his forehead against the red bag. He sighed, picking his head up and scanning the room, smirking a bit at the sight of his ogling boyfriend.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he smiled, opening his arms in a way that made Kurt pull a face, even though he was already drenched in sweat from his Cheerios practice. “Oh come on, Kurt, I just want a hug.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, “No. You’re all sweaty and I’ve already taken time out of my precious skin care regimen to stare at you for a while.”

Blaine smiled mischievously and chased after Kurt, who, in turn, shrieked and ran around the empty locker room. Blaine simply leaned against the lockers, throwing his arms around Kurt’s waist and lifting him a bit off the ground when he returned from his lap around the room.

“B!” he yelled, chuckling and squirming as Blaine set him down. “Ugh, now I’ve got your sweat all over me. Don’t!” Blaine snapped his mouth shut, the joke he was about to make dying on his tongue as he settled for simply grinning at his boyfriend. “You’re a child,” Kurt chastised.

“If I’m a child then you’ve got a case on your hands, mister,” Blaine responded, not removing his arms from around Kurt’s waist. Kurt rolled his eyes again, sighing once he was released. This was the side of Blaine that he loved to see, the real Blaine, the one without the violent reputation to uphold. Blaine was baring himself to only one person, as if he hated everyone in the world but Kurt (he kind of did, but he was working on that). Kurt walked to the sink, pulling out his many skin care products and examining his complexion, his face scrunching in disgust as he caught sight of the shine of sweat on him. Blaine appeared over his shoulder.

Kurt gave a close lipped smile as he rubbed products onto his face. He dipped his head down and washed it off. When he resurfaced, he asked, “So who was it?”

Blaine looked confused, “Who was what?”

“The bag,” Kurt clarified, softly toweling his face, “You were imagining it was someone, right? I mean, you were so into it.” 

Blaine’s face fell microscopically as he crossed his arms over his chest, nodding. “Elijah and Mason,” he answered shortly. Kurt nodded sympathetically and turned to face his boyfriend, taking his tan hand in his own pale one. Elijah and Mason were the names of the boys who had attacked Blaine and his date after the Sadie Hawkins dance. Blaine thought he was alright about moving on from the incident. He’d moved to McKinley and completely redesigned himself, made it look like Blaine Anderson was a person that ought not to be messed with, with his leather jacket, empty threats, yelling, and scowling, but it would still come back to haunt him from time to time. And when it did, the only thing that really soothed him besides Kurt was just… being able to hit them back, even if he was imagining it.

“I’m sorry, B,” Kurt whispered. Blaine shrugged and shook his head, bringing Kurt into a tight hug and burning his head in the crook of his neck.

“Can I teach you to box?” he mumbled against Kurt’s neck.

Kurt breathed out slowly, resting his head on top of Blaine’s, “Why? It’s not like you wouldn’t protect me.”

“Sometimes people won’t be there to protect you,” he replied distantly, almost as if he were speaking to himself. Kurt knew that Blaine was imagining himself back there, in the parking lot of Westerville High School unable to protect himself or his date from the never ending blows of a bat, steel toed shoes, or bloody fists.

He didn’t respond verbally, only nodded, knowing Blaine could feel it against his head. He felt Blaine exhale, relieved. He pulled back a bit, smiling sadly at Kurt. 

“You know that if I’d be there I would defend you until my last breath,” Blaine promised, his hazel eyes shining with tears and his grip on Kurt almost painful, but Kurt didn't mind, “But I can’t- I can’t always be there, and I can’t have you depending on someone else to defend you when there’s a huge chance, as long as we’re in Ohio, that- that it’ll happen to you, too.”

“I know, Blaine,” replied Kurt, bringing Blaine back in close and squeezing him tightly, pressing a kiss to the dark curls. “I know.”

Blaine sighed, pulling apart for good and wiping the tears off of his face. “Well, let’s get to it, yeah?”

Kurt sighed at Blaine’s aversion to this conversation, but nodded nonetheless, following Blaine to the punching bag where he was holding up a pair of black fingerless boxing gloves. Kurt eyed them.

“I get it, they’re not the most fashionable of things but please just put them on,” Blaine joked lightly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. Kurt slipped his hands into them and looked at Blaine, gesturing at him to continue.

“Okay, so to start off, you want to bend your knees a bit,” he stepped behind Kurt to check his stance, “and, uh, widen your stance.” Kurt did as he was told, knowing this was important to Blaine. Blaine made a few minor adjustments, and once he was satisfied, backed away to give the next instruction.

“So, okay, when you aren’t punching, your arms should be bent at the elbows and your forearms should be protecting your face,” Blaine explained, helping Kurt in getting the placement correct, and, honestly, this seemed like one of those cheesy moves from silly romantic comedies. He would think it was too, he certainly wouldn’t put it past Blaine, if it weren’t for the severity of what they were dealing with. If it weren’t for the traumatized glaze over golden eyes. “When you punch,” he demonstrated what a proper punch should look like, a jab to be more specific, keeping the rest of his body still as his arm extended, “You need to breathe out with it, for energy harvesting or conservation or something.” Kurt copied the action and Blaine smiled. “Good job, gorgeous. Now, after you punch, you always bring it back to where you started, guarding your face. There are different kinds of punches, too, but I guess I can teach you that later. Just practice the one I showed you for now, it’s probably gonna be the most useful. Try thinking of someone you wanna punch, always works for me.”

Kurt didn’t have to think much, if Blaine hadn’t gotten to Karofsky first, Kurt probably would’ve.

They spent the next hour or so practicing, Blaine encouraging Kurt and grinning broadly as Kurt steadily got the hang of it. He knew in his heart that it was extremely ridiculous that he had to train his boyfriend in case of a hate crime, but that was the world they lived in, unfortunately.

“Okay,” he said, putting a hand on the bag to stop the swinging. “I think,” he sighed, shaking his head, “I think we’re good for today.” Kurt put his fists down, pulling the gloves off and shaking out his hands. They changed back into their clothes and, in Kurt’s case, redid skin care routines in silence, until Blaine spoke up, “Look, Kurt, I’m really sorry I wasted so much of your time-”

“Stop,” Kurt interjected, taking Blaine by the hand, “Don’t ever apologize for caring this much, Blaine. I love you, and you love me. If you show that by wanting to protect me, well that's just better for me, isn’t it? It wasn’t a waste of time, you were right. We live in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. We can hope I won’t be attacked like you were, but we don’t know. You- what we just did might just save me from getting too roughed up.” He knocked his shoulder against Blaine’s, trying to make the conversation more light-hearted than it was. 

Blaine smiled sadly, “I guess.”

“No, Blaine, it’s true. Thank you.”

“Of course, Kurt,” Blaine responded, not bothering with arguing with Kurt, knowing the extent to which his boyfriend was stubborn, “I never want you to go through what I went through.”

“You sure?” Kurt teased, dropping his head onto Blaine’s shoulder and smiling up at the dark haired boy, “I think I would look pretty amazing in the leather jacket.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Blaine replied with a chuckle, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s waist once again and studying his face, “You don’t think it’s stupid, do you? The jacket, the attitude, the fighting?”

“Maybe a little,” said Kurt honestly, shrugging and plucking at the lapel of the work leather jacket. “But I know why you do it. It’s like one of the reasons that I’m a Cheerio. It makes them stay away.” They both knew who  _ they  _ were.  _ They  _ were Elijah Jacobson, Mason Gray, David Karofsky, Azimio Adams, the list goes on. “This way, they can’t touch us.” There was a brief pause, “Plus, when we get to New York, we don’t need to hide behind all these stupid stereotypes. I can finally get out of this uniform and we can break out your collection of bowties you have stashed under your bed.”

Blaine laughed, pulling Kurt closer to his side and planting a kiss on his cheek, “Yeah, I guess we could. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, B.”

They walked in comfortable silence for a while until Blaine remembered something that Kurt had said. “You think I’m a stereotype?” 

“Honey, I think you are Danny Zuko reincarnated,” Kurt said, giving his boyfriend a once over, he actually would make a very good Zuko.

“Does that make you Sandy? ‘Cause I might battle it out with you to be able to sing ‘Hopelessly Devoted.’”

“There is no way you are taking that song away from me, Anderson. I will use my new skills against you, don’t you dare try it,” Kurt threatened lightheartedly, pointing playfully at the shorter boy.

Blaine didn’t respond, only launched himself into an energetic rendition of Greased Lightning until they reached Kurt’s Navigator, causing Kurt to burst out laughing and shush him a few times (which was promptly ignored).  _ Well, if you can’t beat them, join them,  _ he thought as he chimed in with “Greased lightning, go greased lightning.”


End file.
